The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that defendants facing a Telephone Consumer Protection Act suit couldn’t escape a class action by making a settlement offer to individual plaintiffs, a decision that has wide ramifications for all class actions. Here, Richard Bridgford tells Law360 why the decision is significant.
“This represents a huge victory for consumers and advocates of equal access to the courts and justice. Large corporations and their counsel’s attempts to pick off class representatives as a means of terminating the claims of thousands of other class members was a deplorable practice that threatened to result in a gross miscarriage of justice. In many instances for the cost of what amounts to a couple hours of an expensive corporate defense attorney’s billable time, corporations could eliminate millions of dollars in valid claims, leaving a whole class of consumers without a remedy. This victory is especially meaningful in light of recent U.S. Supreme Court cases that cut the other way by upholding class action waivers in arbitration clauses.”